


4+1 Times

by Wayward_Panda



Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: CC Secret Santa, Fake Chop, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, cow chop secret santa, gay everything really, gay wrestling, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 03:17:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13355367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wayward_Panda/pseuds/Wayward_Panda
Summary: 4 times James apologized, and the one time Aleks did something about it.





	4+1 Times

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for ass-shark on tumblr! Based on these two prompts:  
> novahd goofin' around and wrasslin', gets gay real quick.
> 
> novahd, aleks gets hurt after doing something Dumb- james takes him to the hospital for stitches. they hold hands or something. hurt/comfort, a lil bit fluffy.

1.

It starts, like all bad ideas do, in the dead of night, when the two of them are alone in the main warehouse. 

"You fucking suck at hand to hand combat." That's what starts it- a challenge. James knows better than to bet on a horse he won't win, but this is different. He speaks with absolute certainty, because he's watched Aleks and he knows that he could use some work. He's not bad, not at all, but he's rusty- all those times of staying back and sniping have taken its toll. It's a liability, if anything, and James is just doing to responsible thing, and helping him get better.

And Aleks has never been one to pass up a challenge anyway.

He stops walking, putting his pistol to the side. "What do you mean?" They just finished unloading a new shipment of guns and ammo. Aleks had been the one in charge of double-checking that everything arrived safely, and he roped James in too. 

"Exactly what I said," James takes a few paces towards Aleks, "You suck at hand to hand."

Aleks is frowning now, stepping away from where he placed his gun and into the light. "I've beaten you before, dude." He insists, watching James' movements.

"That was like, four months ago. You've gotten lazy." James keeps on going forward, stepping lazily.

"Yeah?" Aleks questions, and James can see the eagerness a mile away. "Let's go right now, then."

"Okay," James shrugs, putting his hands in his pockets. He stops where he is, opting instead to eye his opponent. Aleks is already on the defensive, fist clenched and body slightly hunched. He doesn't really change his position, but James knows if he throws a punch, Aleks will most likely catch it. 

"So, do you want to-" James throws a right hook mid-sentence, and, as expected, Aleks grabs it easily. However, he's less prepared for the kick to the gut. Groaning, Aleks stumbles back a few steps.

James is on him again, but Aleks uses his hunched up position to headbutt him, before throwing a left hook himself. James grunts, but he doesn't let himself get distracted by the sting because Aleks is aiming a punch to the gut. He catches that one, pushing him backwards. Aleks stumbles again, but this time, he looses his balance and falls to the floor. 

"Sorry," James apologizes, striding towards the fallen figure. 

He doesn't expect Aleks to wrap his legs around him and pull him down. 

He falls to prepare for the fall, awkwardly hitting his elbow on the concrete, and Aleks takes advantage of that, clambering over him. The punch to the face hurts more than the first one did, but dimly, in the back of his mind, he realizes that Aleks is holding back.

He brings his knee up and kicks it against Aleks's gut. Though he's winded, he doesn't stop punching, though they're definitely weaker and clumsier than before. One of them swings wildly and misses his head by centimeters, and James manages to grab it. They wrestle for a while, James wanting to gain control and Aleks not wanting to give it up. James manages to overpower him though, flipping him over, and pinning his arms above his head. 

"Fuck dude," Aleks curses, struggling against James. 

"I win," James grins victoriously. 

"Alright great, get off me." Aleks was always so demanding, and it feels really good to be in control for once.

So instead of relinquishing it, James just grins. "I think I like you the way you are now."

Aleks pauses, giving him a look. "Yeah?" He questions, swallowing, "Cause I don't."

James doesn't miss the way Aleks slightly shudders underneath him, or how his breath comes out a bit shaky. "Well…" James starts off, "What are you going to do about that?"

Aleks grins.

 

2.

Heist planning is not James's most favorite thing in the world. It's vital, he knows that, he knows that there has to be some organization to the beautiful chaos they cause because organization is what separates friends from foes and whatnot. 

Still, that's more of a Brett and Lindsey thing. They're the masterminds to the entire thing. And sure, James is better equipped to see the bigger picture, especially compared to Aleks or Trevor, but sometimes, he longs for the days where he could just rely on someone to think of the plans for him, and he'd only have to worry about his part. Being the leader of the group has its perks, and James wouldn't change this for the world, but still… things were easier then. 

He sighed, glancing over the blueprints. It was the layout of an expensive building downtown, owned by a very rich, corrupt man. As with most rich corrupt men, someone else wanted him dead, and were willing to pay a large sum of money to ensure his death. And, since they contacted Fake Chop, they didn't care how much damage was caused. 

The plan was to infiltrate the building slowly (or, slower than normal, at least), because James wanted to use some new bombs that had come in, and they required a very meticulous bit of set up. The entire ordeal is simple enough, but going over every possibility is exhausting, and he doesn't really think the type of car they get matters if they're detonating this miles away and who fucking cares about code names and things like that it's a one time deal and-

"James!" 

James blinks, looking upwards at the sound of Aleks's voice. He's standing in the doorway, with James's phone in hand.

"Shit, did I leave that in Brett's office?" Because, wow, James didn't even realize that was missing.

Aleks hands it to him, nodding. "Yeah, I've been calling you for a while."

"Sorry." James sighs, pushing away the blueprints. "Just been working on this shit."

"Is that the heist plan?" Aleks asks, tilting his head to one side as if that would help him see the papers. "Thought you guys worked that stuff out already."

"We did, I'm just double-checking," James affirms, rubbing his eyes. "Anyway, what did you want?"

"I called to see if you wanted anything to eat." Aleks holds up a brown Taco Bell bag and wow, James must be tired because he did not see that before, how long had Aleks been holding that. "But you didn't answer."

"Shit dude, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, I got you a taco anyway," Aleks hands it to him, and James accepts his happily, not even realizing how hungry he had gotten. The taco's decent, but James is more touched by the fact that Aleksandr Marchant actually got him something instead of being the selfish piece of shit he normally was. 

Speaking of which, Aleks is leaning over now, looking interested in the plans. "This looks pretty cool, dude."

"Thanks," James replies through a mouthful of food. "I'm almost finished with it."

"Almost?" Aleks sounds shocked, "This is pretty thorough. What else do you need to do?"

James sighs, because there's so many things he still needs to do and he doesn't know where he can even begin and he has to get this all done before next Friday and-

"That bad, huh?" Aleks's voice breaks into his thoughts again. 

James sinks into the chair. "Yeah," he affirms. 

Aleks is the one that sighs this time. "Go take a nap dude," he orders, "When's the last time you slept?"

"I dunno dude." And the thing is, James wants to take a break. He really does, but if he stops, he'll never have the motivation required to finish the plans. 

"Then go to sleep," Aleks insists, "You can't work when you're exhausted. And besides, whatever you wrote last looks like scribbles."

James squints, looking at the paper again. Sure enough, it's difficult for even him to read what's written, so there's no way Brett'll be able to understand it. God, now he's going to have to write that again, and that'll take even longer, and he's already crushed on time how is he supposed to get this done-

"Dude." And, for the umpteenth time, Aleks is breaking him out of his thoughts. "Just… go to sleep. You can't work like this."

James rubs his eyes. "You're right."

"I know I am."

"But I have to finish this."

"You can," Aleks grabs his and James's trash, and continues speaking, "After your nap."

There's a pause. Finally, James gives in. "Okay," he relents, wearily standing up and making his way to find a couch to crash on.

He locates one with minimal difficulty, falling into it with a groan. He starts dozing off a little while later, and the last thing he registers is the feeling of someone draping a blanket over him. 

James wakes up to distant honking and a nearly empty warehouse. Remembering about the unfinished heist plans, he gets up and stretches, wincing. 

When he's greeted with a stack of neatly written paperwork thoroughly depicting the heist, he nearly falls over in shock. Of course, he still needs to go over it and edit things, but it's a huge weight of his shoulders. 

Man, when he gets home, he's going to show Aleksandr the biggest appreciation of his life.

3.

"James, what the fuck-" James, in all his half-awake glory, places his hand over Aleks' obnoxiously bright phone, interrupting whatever he was doing before. 

They're in bed, and it's night, so James feels very justified in his actions. It's also been a few days after Aleks helped him with the heist plans. Brett and Lindsey were both very pleased with it, and now most of the responsibility was out of his hands. Now, he had as much time in the world to sleep. But of course, Aleks just had to go and ruin it with his phone that seemed bright enough to light up an entire goddamn building. 

"Go to sleep, its like…" he pauses, and squints to try and read what the time says on Aleks' phone. He gives up five seconds afterwards. "It's like, late, turn off your phone."

"I'm working," Aleks insists, swatting away the finger that comes dangerously close to the phone's power button. Strangely, he doesn't move the phone away.

James tries again, receiving the same results. "Work later." 

"I can't, I gotta send this stuff today. I was supposed to do this earlier…" Aleks adds that last part softer, like an afterthought.

"Yeah?" James questions, "Why didn't you?"

"You know exactly why I didn't, asshole," Aleks retorts, shifting ever so slightly. From this angle, James can just barely see some spot dark purple around Aleks's neck, and then he remembers vividly. He remembers hot breaths and needy fingers and barely-contained grunts that turned to whimpers halfway through, because Aleks was so goddamn needy all of the time, and who was he to say no to those wicked grins and wild eyes? 

"James-" Aleks breaks off mid sentence, because James has decided to give Aleks a taste of his own medicine, and what better way to do that than to continue where he left off before?

Aleks' phone tumbles out of his hand and onto the carpet, and he glances at it, distracted. "I gotta finish this," he protests weakly, though one look at him and James knows, he knows from those eyes that he wants an excuse.

"Sorry," he says apathetically, before pressing his lips against Aleks's. 

4\. 

"I'm sorry," it bubbles up, and he chokes.

James is cradling Aleks's head. There's blood spilling over everywhere, over the seat and onto his hands, onto James's black pants and it's sickening how there's so much of it, and he doesn't want to think about how much blood James's has lost, doesn't want to know how much is too much-

The car jostles, breaking James out of his panicked thoughts. "Jesus Trevor-" he manages to spit out, stopping before he can say something he'll regret. 

"I'm sorry," and now Trevor's apologizing, and all James wants to do is to have it stop, to have everything stop, really, he just wants to reverse time to that day where he and Aleks were in bed again, and when it was comfortably warm. Oh god, James's blood was warm-

"'M not dyin'," Aleks slurs, and if the situation was any different, James would've punched him. 

"Fuck you," he settles for instead. 

Everything in the heist went so wrong. The info they had gotten was outdated, and it turned out that the dude had decided to have the meeting in a different building, and that wouldn't have been a terrible thing, with them being so nicely infiltrated and all, except somehow, someone had gotten wind of their plot, then thought to do a thorough security sweep of the entire building. And, of course, they had to stumble upon him while he was defusing the bombs (because there were better things he could use those on), and, of course, they decide the smartest thing to do is open fire on him. He had managed to get out fairly safely, especially since Aleks had shown up and provided cover fire. But on their way to the car, the police showed up, landing a lucky shot in Aleks' chest.

"It's gonna be alright," God, Trevor sounds like he's trying to convince himself and everyone else, because Aleks wasn't prepared to get in a firefight and therefore didn't have any body armor so how can he survive it's a torso wound- "Brett's taking the heat off of us, and Asher and Anna got their supplies ready."

James nods, like an afterthought, because he's more occupied on trying not to have Aleks bleed out. "Stay awake," he orders, because Aleks is fading fast. He taps on his cheek lightly. "Stay awake, goddamn it."

"Tryin'," Aleks replies, though his eyelids try to flutter shut again. 

"We're almost there," Trevor announces, "Five more minutes."

"Five minutes, Aleks," James says eagerly, clinging onto the small hope, "Stay awake for five more minutes."

It was only a few days ago that the two of them were in bed, Aleks on his phone ordering something. More than anything, James wishes he were back to that night, so that way he could savor the moment. It was always in the back of his mind, that this could be his last time having something like that because the next heist could be his last, but it's different now, because now those thoughts are real. 

"Stay with me," James sounds vulnerable, he knows it, but he can't be bothered to put on a strong persona when Aleks is on his lap, bleeding. 

"Two minutes," Trevor updates, "We're almost there."

That's all James can remember clearly from that point. From there, the ride seems to end almost immediately. He remembers handing off Aleks to Asher or Jakob or someone watching dumbly as he's carried off. As he steps out of the vehicle, someone places an arm on his shoulder- he'd like to think it's Brett, but that's impossible, he's still out distracting police- leading him towards the warehouse. The person's saying something, but James can't understand it, everything's just too loud and bright. His adrenaline's wearing off, and now that he knows Aleks is out of his hands, all he feels is exhaustion. A part of him wants to go in after Aleks, just to make sure everything's alright, but a bigger part of him knows that he'll be of no use to anyone, only a nuisance getting in the way.

All the tension in James's body seems to leave him in the same moment, and he tilts backwards, but the hand on his shoulder steadies him. There's a dull throbbing in his arm, and when he peers down at it he realizes that it's not Aleks's blood that's pouring out of it, it's his and there's a lot of it and oh, that explains a lot. 

He passes out with an apology on his lips. 

+1

He's greeted by bright light. 

Aleks knows he's not dead, because he's awoken in the position a couple of times. He's in their makeshift infirmary. The dull throbbing and sporadic pains aren't new either; it hasn't even been his first time getting shot in the torso.

What is new, however, is the warmth coming from his right hand. 

Blinking, he looks over. James is in the cot next to him, with an IV dripping into his arm. Despite that, he had grabbed Aleks's hand and held it, even while he was unconscious. That was… surprising mushy, especially for James. James had never been a touchy-feely person, and he'd definitely never been some to show public displays of affection, but Aleks supposed that there was first to everything. (And he could now tease the shit out of James by bring this up.) 

Aleks shifts, trying to get into a better sitting position. At the same time, Anna walks in. 

"Don't move around too much," she orders, immediately grabbing some medication.

"I was just sitting up!" Aleks insists. 

Anna give him a glance, and he wilts. Aleks faced a lot of messed up shit, that's what makes up Fake Chop, but he has yet to meet anything more terrifying than a pissed-off Anna. 

"A bullet punctured your liver," Anna begins before Aleks can ask. "It went straight through, thank God, but you lost a lot of blood."

"And James?"

"Bullet to the arm," She hands Aleks two pills. Aleks decides the best thing to do is to just stare at them. "I had to remove the bullet, but he's lucky it didn't nick an artery." Then, seeing Aleks's lack of action, she sighs, exasperated. "Swallow them, they're pain killers. Don't take more than two per day."

"Whatever you say, doc," Aleks says, downing the pills. He accepts the bottle of water Anna offers gratefully. 

Anna scoffs. "This shouldn't be a surprise, neither of you are going to out causing chaos any time soon." 

Groaning, Aleks thumps his head on the bed. That's a poor choice, however, because his stomach instantly feels as if it's burst into flames. "How long til we recover?" He asks between clenched teeth.

"About two weeks? Maybe more, maybe less." As Aleks nods, she hands him another pill bottle. "Ive got to go help Asher though, but I'll be back soon. If James wakes up while I'm gone, give him two of these. Don't let him take anymore today." 

"Alright! Geez, you're so bossy."

Anna throws another water bottle at him, then leaves. Aleks realizes that maybe he should've asked Anna what day it was, or how long he'd been out. He also realizes that throughout that entire conversation, James's hand never left his. 

He lays there for a while. Maybe he should be more concerned. He nearly bled out, James nearly bled out, but a larger part of him is just relieved. Sure, they almost died, but they weren't dead, they were still alive, and James's hand is in his. 

Speaking of which, James seems to be stirring. Aleks watches as the other squints against the harsh light.

"Morning, sleeping beauty," Aleks greets. 

James groans, throwing his not injured arm over his face. "Ugh, how long have I been out?"

"Not sure, I forgot to ask Anna. She gave me these though," Aleks lets go of James's hand to place the pills in his palm. 

James downs them eagerly, and then gulps down the water Aleks gives him. "Thanks," he says, and they drift into silence.

Aleks wants to say something, but he doesn't know what. What the fuck is he supposed to say, anyway? The heist was a bust, but they all made it out alive, so he's happy. But James tends to take responsibility for absolutely everything, feeling that since he's the one in charge, that's his burden. 

"I'm sorry," James says out of the blue, and Aleks frowns.

"It's not you're fault, dude," he replies, because it isn't. There was nothing about that James could've predicted and planned for, it was all just bad luck. 

Of course, James doesn't see it that way. "I'm the reason you got shot," he insists, shifting in the cot to get a better view of Aleks.

"I'm the reason I got shot," Aleks shifts up too, "don't take credit for everything. You got yourself shot."

"But I should've planned for this. I could've thought of a better escape plan, I could've checked the info again-"

"But you didn't. And you can't do anything about it now." And that's the crux of it. For how much James regrets it, the heist is done and past. It's blunt, and it's insensitive, but Aleks knows that James has never been someone with easily hurt feelings. 

James lets out a deep breath. "…yeah," he says eventually. 

"And now we know better!" Aleks sounds almost mocking as he says it. "But seriously, stop beating yourself up about it. You couldn't have known."

"I guess," James shrugs, half heartedly, because of his arm. He doesn't dismiss the idea entirely however, so Aleks calls that a win.

"Hey," he directs James attention at him again. He grabs James hand, and surprisingly, James doesn't pull away. "We're alive."

And the tension in James seems to melt away as he takes in what Aleks says. Because despite everything, they're still together, still alive. Eventually, they'll both be able to get on their feet, and be ready to heist again. Eventually, they'll be able to cause chaos in the city again.

As Aleks squeezes his hand, James lets out a sigh of relief, because they're alive.


End file.
